Raised As The Opposite Gender

A couple has a baby that's the opposite gender from the one they wanted or needed. For whatever reason, they decide that rather than keep trying, they're going to raise the existing child as if they were the desired gender.

Once the kid is a little older, this usually leads to conflict between the child and the parents and/or inner conflict for the child, who has to weigh the desire to be thmselves against their desire to please their parents (or keep their inheritance or what have you). In a few cases, though, the child turns out to identify just fine with the gender they were raised as.

The following examples are mostly taken from the Raised As A Boy YKTTW. Beware of inherent spoilers.

Lord Fanny in The Invisibles: s/he is born as a boy into a family of powerful female witches, and s/he is raised as a girl so that s/he can continue the family tradition (which is forbidden to men). Her/his grandmother even chastises her/his father for producing a male child instead of the preferred female one. Fanny quite easily accepts the gender she is given and grows up to be a transgendered woman with magical powers.

There is an elaborate conspiracy theory that posits that Hamlet is woman (because Hamlet acts passive and hysterical, as we all know females do). The idea is that she was raised as a male to ensure a line of succession to the throne.

An episode of Law And Order SVU featured a pair of fraternal twins. However, you find out later that they were born identical, and the sister was actually a boy who was given a sex change after a botched circumcision.

@bluepenguin: There's (presumably) a typo in the Lord Fanny example. "s/he is born as a boy into a family of powerful female witches, and s/he is raised as a boy so that s/he can continue the family tradition..." If that's not a typo then I think it warrents more explanation.

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